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A camera that shoots 40k FPS decided the 100-meter sprint final
- formerly_proven 2y ago(It's a line scan camera)
- porphyra 2y agoPhoto finishes are typically done with a line scan camera. It only captures a single column of pixels at a time. So the horizontal axis in the image is actually time, not space. Super cool stuff.
- SoftTalker 2y agoAh I was wondering why you can't actually see the finish line in the image. This wasn't really described well. Are the shadows of the runners artificial then?
- jetrink 2y ago> Are the shadows of the runners artificial then? As the runners' shadows cross the finish line, they are recorded by the camera in the same way that the runners are.
- wiredfool 2y agoYou can, it's the white bit. It just doesn't move. The shadows are what's projected on the line from the stadium lights, and the shape is how they changed in time.
- SoftTalker 2y agoOh I see, it's the entire "track" that is rendered in the image. Again, not well explained in the article.
- wanderingstan 2y agoBecause this is a line camera, the entire image is the finish line. That is, each vertical column of pixels is what was on the finish line at that particular point in time. That’s also the reason for the distortions. It’s not a single frame taken at one time.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- laweijfmvo 2y agoshouldn’t the runners be facing left then?
- bonzini 2y agoTime goes backwards on the x axis.
- jasode 2y ago>This wasn't really described well. This short video might be a better explanation of the "line camera" concept of multiple photos of a single line being stretched out over the x-axis : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut0nKdLCAEo&t=0m23s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut0nKdLCAEo&t=0m23s
- xnorswap 2y agoIs the advertising board behind faked then? Shouldn't that be static relative to the finish line, and therefore not really show up?
- wanderingstan 2y agoAccording to Reddit thread on this, the led board behind is specifically animated with the right timing so the content shows up correctly in the line camera.
- jonahhorowitz 2y agoThere is a special advertising board that only the camera can see.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wtallis 2y agoThere's a narrow display behind the finish line with a quickly-scrolling banner ad.
- LeoPanthera 2y agoI was there at the time, and I could clearly see how the advertising board works. It's a vertical line of LEDs that constantly rotates through the columns of the logo. To the naked eye it just seems to be flickering randomly.
- iainmerrick 2y agoI was curious what the advertising board would have looked like to the athletes -- it must be a bit distracting to see a display scrolling at ~10m/s! You can see it here at 9m50s: https://youtu.be/7Xnr805bm4E?feature=shared&t=590 https://youtu.be/7Xnr805bm4E?feature=shared&t=590 It's just a single animated strip, one pixel wide. I assume the camera array is on the opposite side.
- adolph 2y agoWhen I read "line scan camera" I thought of "rolling shutter" which in digital cameras works out to be a horizontal line at a time, which causes interesting artifacts with quick moving objects like propellers or windshield wipers. Questions that came to mind and answers as far as I can tell: Q: Are the scan lines parallel to the plane of completion? A: There is only one scan line and it is parallel to the plane of completion. "In track, the cameras are only focused on the 5 mm near the finish line." [0] Q: If yes, is the sequence of lines scanned in the same direction as the competitor movement? A: There is only one scan line. 0. https://www.axios.com/2024/08/05/noah-lyles-wins-gold-track-camera-omega https://www.axios.com/2024/08/05/noah-lyles-wins-gold-track-... Also interesting: https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/olympics-2024-mens-100m-photo-finish https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/olympics-2024-mens-100m-ph...
- jasomill 2y agoNote that the rolling shutter effect is not limited to digital photography: it also affects physical focal plane shutters at high shutter speeds due to the time it takes for shutter curtains to move across the frame. This effect is the origin of the "fast race car slants forward" trope: https://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2011/images/pr11_054.jpg https://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2011/images/pr... https://imsmuseum.org/adoptable_car/1911-winner/ https://imsmuseum.org/adoptable_car/1911-winner/
- ortusdux 2y agoI find line scan cameras and strip photography fascinating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strip_photography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strip_photography Early film versions used a highspeed spinning slit aperture to film fast objects. This paper from 1931 shows some very impressive results for ballistics, including the shockwave: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspa.1931.0095 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspa.1931... Outside sports, digital line scan cameras are used in various quality control applications (objects on conveyer belts, vehicle mounted road/rail scanners, etc). This unit can film an 8k px strip at a rate of 80khz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXUwJOJ7fMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXUwJOJ7fMk
- dllu 2y agoOh yeah I took that picture on the Wikipedia article! I have a couple more on my website [1]. One of these days I want to go to Atherton station with my line scan camera to scan some Caltrains. [1] https://daniel.lawrence.lu/photos/ https://daniel.lawrence.lu/photos/
- fouronnes3 2y agoFun fact! This is actually how many earth observation satellites work too! Except the motion comes not from the subject, but the satellite orbit itself. It's called a pushbroom camera.
- imoverclocked 2y agoHiRISE in MRO is a pushbroom imager too… so we have sent the tech beyond Earth’s orbit :)
- mhb 2y agoYes. And this is a terribly uninformative article which says nothing interesting about any of that.
- ghayes 2y agoShouldn’t the screen (Olympics logo) in the background be a constant blur then?
- Tuna-Fish 2y agoIt's also 1 pixel wide, and varies over time. https://youtu.be/7Xnr805bm4E?feature=shared&t=417 https://youtu.be/7Xnr805bm4E?feature=shared&t=417
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoAgreed. Better article IMO: https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/olympics-2024-mens-100m-photo-finish https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/olympics-2024-mens-100m-ph... To the question of the Omega logo and Olympic rings asked below, this article states "In fact, the entire photo is literally the finish line viewed one pixel at a time (the Omega and Olympic branding is added at the top)."
- ortusdux 2y agoIIRC, they have a single pixel wide display that strobes the logos, similar to a persistence of vision display.
- xanderlewis 2y agoIt’s slightly misleading to say it’s time rather than space, though, because of course the subjects are moving and so each column does correspond to a different position (with respect to each one). With respect to the track, however, moving horizontally is obviously just moving in time. Another weird (until you think about it) thing that’s true: every pixel in the image is at the finish line.
- mannykannot 2y agoThe 'vertical' axis is spatial, representing position across the track, but I would argue that if we take your final sentence and append "...at sequential time intervals" to it, we end up making the case that the horizontal axis in the image is actually time, not space. Each column is the finish line at a different time, and perhaps counter-intuitively (given the usual convention), the right-most column is the earliest. This is clearer, I think, from considering how the banner is made: as others have pointed out, it is produce by having a single row of LEDs in line with the finish line, each one being turned on and off in a sequence which results in the banner shown in the picture.
- hasoleju 2y agoFirst I was wondering why there are ad banners visible in the image. With a line scan camera the background which is standing still should actually only have horizontal stripes. But since the company Omega produced this photo it actually makes sense to artificially add their logo next to the Olympic rings.
- jaffa2 2y agoi read that that actually a led screen that basically is synced to the camera so it appears as a 2d banner when in actuallity its a 1d banner that changes over time which when displayed like it is looks like a 2d banner. kinda neat. In a weird way similar to the the adverts painted on the pitch or trackside that look like 2d on screen dogs but only look that way from a certain camera angle
- mmmmmbop 2y agoThis is genius, thanks for pointing that out!
- Tuna-Fish 2y agoYou can see it flash in the video of the event: https://youtu.be/7Xnr805bm4E?feature=shared&t=417 https://youtu.be/7Xnr805bm4E?feature=shared&t=417
- hasoleju 2y agoThanks for the link! This is so great so actually see how the line camera and this line screen work together to create an ad in the finish line photo.
- tuyiown 2y agoI had to combine Tuna-Fish comments and yours to understand what's going on. > And the Omega/Olympics flag "banner" behind the runners is not a banner, it is a led screen, one pixel wide. So the one pixel wide scan line camera outputs and image that has time as horizontal axis, and the one pixel screen that draws the omega banner is a 40kfps single line video that does marketing one the photo finish that likely serves as a clock sync check.
- voytec 2y agoOk, what's the underlying storage?
- jsheard 2y agoHigh speed cameras usually record into RAM and then dump the recording out to an SSD in slower-than-realtime when it ends. Since the recording duration is limited by RAM capacity they have rolling modes which record continuously into a ring buffer and then store the current contents when the shutter is pressed, so that unpredictable events can be captured after they happen.
- freedomben 2y agoIs RAM even fast enough? I remember reading somewhere that the high speed cameras have special cache-like memory on or near the processor that is faster write than RAM. I can't find it now though so I'm taking it with a grain of salt.
- jsheard 2y agoMaybe in specialty cameras with ultra low maximum recording durations but it's usually just a bunch of DRAM, take this Phantom camera as an example. https://www.phantomhighspeed.com/products/cameras/tmx/7510 https://www.phantomhighspeed.com/products/cameras/tmx/7510 The spec sheet lists up to 512GB of RAM depending on configuration. There's no way you're scaling cache-like SRAM up to those numbers.
- Denvercoder9 2y agoThe necessary data rate for these photo finish cameras isn't actually that high, because every "frame" is only 1 pixel wide. If the photo is 10000 pixels high, you need a datarate of about 10 Gbit/s at 40000 fps and 24 bits/pixel. RAM is plenty fast enough for that. Regular high-speed cameras that shoot a video are a whole other story, though.
- johndhi 2y agoHmm -- call me crazy, but I feel like the positioning of the camera might have wrongly decided the race for Lyles. The first torso to cross the line wins. If you look at the still image in the article, Lyles' right shoulder is leaning forward and visible to the camera, positioned to his right. But Thompson's left shoulder seem to be leaning forward, but is hidden in the camera by his head and neck. It's possible Thompson's left shoulder is ahead of Lyles' right shoulder, but the image doesn't seem sufficient evidence to conclude on that. What do other think?
- wanderingstan 2y agoAccording to this Reddit thread, the camera actually is the finish line: > According to UCI regulations, the camera is the finish line. > The painted line on the road or track is placed there as a visual reference for riders and spectators, and obviously organizers try to align the painted line with the photo finish camera as best as possible. But that's all it is - a visual reference. The finish line is officially defined as the plane of the photo finish camera, not the painted finish line. https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/1emivk1/dont_if_it_belongs_here_but_check_out_this_photo/ https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/1emivk1/dont_if_...
- johndhi 2y agoWoah! Helpful. I guess Thompson should learn to dive forward with his right shoulder next time!
- swasheck 2y agocommentators tangentially referenced this when they mentioned that lyles had "learned" how to make a good finishing lunge, but it was also heavily implied that they were talking about the timing of the lunge and not the mechanics.
- deanCommie 2y agoYeah, keep in mind at athletics competition, a "false start" is deemed to be anything within 100m of the actual firing gun - because that is deemed to be below the level of human perception, and therefore someone "bet" or "guessed". So I can't imagine a human can take a conscious step to get a FIVE millisecond advantage over another.
- ck2 2y agoEven elite marathons now are almost always ending in sprint finishes which is a bit dumb but an obvious problem. The women's olympic marathon was won by less than 3 second after more than 26 miles? Photos no matter how fast still require human objectivity in evaluation. Instead there should be some digital signal or laser reflection that is precise? I don't like the rule where it's any part of the athlete's body first to cross the line, it should be the first athlete to ENTIRELY cross the line, no part of them still remains before the line, not even their trailing foot.
- semitones 2y ago> I don't like the rule where it's any part of the athlete's body first to cross the line, it should be the first athlete to ENTIRELY cross the line, no part of them still remains before the line, not even their trailing foot. What's the difference?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- iainmerrick 2y agoit should be the first athlete to ENTIRELY cross the line a) Why entirely across, and not just the first to touch the line? b) I get that basing it on the whole body feels a bit more objective, but it would probably also lead to people diving over the line to gain a few milliseconds. As well as looking a bit silly it could be dangerous. The lean through a (now virtual) tape at chest height is traditional.
- grogenaut 2y agoI could see bigger people at a disadvantage so is it fair? Please show your work in the form of a myth busters episode, and figure out how to work some form of explosion in.
- croes 2y agoDigital signals and lasers aren't any better. There are lots of errors that can be made that change the measurements. Photo finish is one of the best methods. Where is the difference between first body part crosses the line vs the whole person? It's still hard to know who has won in a photo finish.
- laweijfmvo 2y agowould have liked to have seen a better explanation of the red lines in the image. it sounds like those are added by humans to outline the runners' chests; how do they ensure the lines are drawn on the frame exactly at the finish line?
- grogenaut 2y agoIf you read the other comments and the article the camera is one pixel wide, each vertical column in the image IS a frame. It's ensured with physics. It's a bit subtle but makes sense once you grok that. So each pixel left is 1/40,000 later
- laweijfmvo 2y agoso every column is the finish line?
- grogenaut 2y agoyes, there's literally only one column of pixels, the sensor is say 4k tall by 1 wide, eg a row of pixels. The x axis in the image (left right) is the time domain. Imagin instead of the people running from left to right, instead they were still and the pixels were moving right to left, or if that breaks your brain, think about if the track was a people mover and the runners were a static diorama moving left to right and the sensor is just it over time. But also none of that is real.
- iainmerrick 2y agoDoes it matter if they're off by ±1 pixel? It's pretty easy to eyeball the rightmost part of each athlete's torso and the frame rate is high enough that there's plenty of space between them. It looks plenty reliable as long as the camera was positioned and calibrated correctly (which I assume was carefully tested beforehand).
- dist-epoch 2y agoThere could be two sets of line, one line assigned exactly when each runner crosses to get his time, and another set assigned when the first runner crosses, and this picture is distributed.
- syspec 2y agoIn the top image, where exactly is the "finish" line?
- stavros 2y agoNowhere, the camera takes an image of a single line in time (and what the camera sees is the canonical finish line). The visual finish line isn't where that camera is looking, so it's never captured. The left and right of that camera isn't space, it's time (right is earlier, left is later).
- jarboot 2y agoThe entire photo is the finish line. Look at the color of the ground -- it's cream, the color of the lines on the track, while the track is blue. Each vertical line of the photo is taken in the same position on that finish line. The first "line photo" is the right-most column of pixels on that photo. The next photo is the second-to-the-right column, etc. This way the winner can be determined as the line first photo that has the contestant's torso in it.
- vitaflo 2y agoAlso every runner in this photo is showing them at the finish line even tho they appear in the photo to be at different places. It’s why all the runners are leaning forward because they are all crossing the finish line.
- kzrdude 2y agoAnd to add, every placement can be decided from this one "photo", right?
- Buttons840 2y agoI had the same question, "what happened to the track?" I appreciate you asking it. On second viewing, you can see that some things are very distorted and this is obviously a composite as has been explained.
- 2y ago
- system2 2y agoWhy is it so difficult for these articles to insert the photo or place the correct link for it? Here is the image of the camera: https://www.swatchgroup.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/680-382-scanovision-ultimate-camera.jpg https://www.swatchgroup.com/sites/default/files/inline-image...
- setgree 2y agoThere was controversy in 2012 at the U.S. Olympic Trials when Allyson Felix & Jeneba Tarmoh finished neck and neck -- basically the cameras at the time couldn't make out the difference [0]. I think that was pretty hard on the athletes, so I'm glad to see we've made some progress. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/jul/02/jeneba-tarmoh-allyson-felix-london-olympics https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/jul/02/jeneba-tarmoh-...
- nunorbatista 2y agoAs someone who worked closely to the Omega / Swisstiming operations at the Olympics, this is super cool stuff. Congratulations to all involved in being able to deliver when it mattered. The team also makes really interesting stuff on other sports, such as Beach Volley. Worth checking how it's done.
- oulipo 2y ago[flagged]
- Dylan16807 2y agoI can get behind that idea, but come on, it's not a capitalism problem.
- oulipo 2y agoI'm speaking of the mindset, it's the same competitive mindset which leads us to capitalism, and to seeing each other as competitors we have to overpower, instead of collaborators we have to build with
- anigbrowl 2y agoThis is true to some extent. The observation that all 8 runners were within 120ms of each other suggests this sort of hyper-optimization will only continue without really making us better informed. Lyles himself was under the impression that he had come in second, per his on-track interview.
- owenpalmer 2y ago> THE EXACT SAME SPEED Usain Bolt and I have the same PR if you round to 1 significant figure. I think he should share his medals with me.
- oulipo 2y agoHere we're speaking of 2ms or what
- figmaballs 2y ago[dead]
- tqi 2y agoIs there a 1-pixel wide display at the finish line that is showing the Omega / Olympic Rings banners?
- michaelt 2y agoIt's more like an inch wide, but yes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xnr805bm4E&t=590s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xnr805bm4E&t=590s There have been times in the past when photo finish cameras have been installed crooked relative to the finish line painted on the ground [1] and while I have no great love for yet-more-advertising, this does serve to confirm that the camera was pointed in the right direction :) [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26970854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26970854
- urda 2y agoI used to be a big time operator of FinishLynx equipment stateside, which is the same idea here used by the Omega, it's a finish line camera.
- munchler 2y agoSince this camera scans 1D lines, rather than 2D frames, I don't think FPS is the right unit of measure. Perhaps 40,000 lines per second is correct?
- kazinator 2y agoKishane should have stuck out his tongue. Guess he didn't see Cars?
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 2y agoIf a races are decided by such small amounts, like lane 1 being a millimeter ahead than lane 2, then the lanes have to be the same down to a millimeter for it to be a fair race. I wonder if timing will outpace feasible construction before long and we’ll have to say, “lane 1 finished a zillionth of a second ahead, but that makes it a tie because we can’t tell if they started a zillionth of a meter closer.”
- ajdude 2y agoI'm reminded of this Futurama clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5MohK5FHEY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5MohK5FHEY
- 2muchcoffeeman 2y agoAgree. There needs to be a rule about the smallest increment you can win by. Maybe 1/100 of a second.
- Dylan16807 2y agoRandomly picking out of everyone that finished in the same millisecond is plenty fair.
- anigbrowl 2y agoIf two contestants are that close they can both have a gold medal. Ties are a perfectly acceptable outcome.
- Dylan16807 2y agoThat is also fair. I think both are fair enough in this rare situation. Whether or not the finish is this close is already luck-based even when two people have equal skill.
- userbinator 2y agoOr have them race again (and again, and again...) until one comes out ahead, like how ties are broken in other sports too.
- dan-robertson 2y agoI kinda hate this article because it could be so much better and yet it isn’t. The headline is clearly, in some sense, silly. It’s silly because the usual notion people have of fps is something like video where you need to move your roll of film or read out from your sensor at that rate. The ‘frame rate’ for a photo finish is much more incidental to the way the image is made. If you have an image from a typical digital camera that is 4000px high formed by a typical two-curtain shutter that shutters in 10ms, you expose 400 rows per ms or, in some silly sense, 400k FPS. If you wanted a 1-pixel high slit to be exposed then that’s an exposure of 1/400000s, which is faster than any camera I’m aware of. But I think the analogy is useful – instead of a shutter moving a slit over the focal plane, exposing different parts of the sensor at slightly different times, imagine the sensor being moved behind a fixed slit and then reading out the values from it. You can reasonably easily imagine doing this with film too – just move it past the slit at a steady rate – not dissimilarly from taking an old-school panorama camera and moving the body instead of the lens. I think the thing happening here is not a moving sensor but rather a 1 pixel wide sensor (or perhaps a few pixels for colour reasons). This makes it thousands of times smaller than the resolution of the final image so even a fairly typical cmos sensor at 2e9 pixels per second could read 50000 pixel ‘frames’ at ‘40k FPS’. (In practice the number would probably be lower for synchronisation reasons). When your frame is very skinny, that still gives you plenty of resolution. I don’t like the article because they did some silly arithmetic that produces a big number instead of digging into interesting details, e.g. - talking about how the system works as a whole (when does it decide to start/stop the image, maybe something about buffering) - talking about how much light you need and how you get enough - talking about the optics, how you keep everyone sharp while still getting enough light, how you even focus such a thing - talking how you make sure the camera is setup fairly (eg perpendicular to the lanes, able to get a good view of all the lanes) - maybe something about reliability and how you avoid the bad scenario of the system failing when it matters most
- foobar1962 2y ago> You can reasonably easily imagine doing this with film too – just move it past the slit at a steady rate – not dissimilarly from taking an old-school panorama camera and moving the body instead of the lens. No need to imagine, this is how photo finish cameras at horse and greyhound races have worked for decades.
- leshenka 2y ago> this video is not available in your location So much for supposed freedom of speech, Elon
- AlexanderTheGr8 2y agoI have often wondered : Why don't they attach a transponder on each athlete's center-of-chest (using some objective definition) and use that to time each athlete? That can be much much more accurate than any camera. We can still use cameras for visual confirmation but transponders are much more accurate than any camera.
- underlipton 2y agoI'm not convinced they don't. If you look at Lyle's bib when he takes it off and shows it to everyone, there's something on the back. I thought it was another YuGiOh card at first, but then I thought, "That'd be the perfect place to put something to trigger some sort of check at the finish line."
- chedabob 2y agoI suspect it's probably just easier for them to print all the race numbers the same way, but only use the transponder on races where it doesn't need to be accurate, or they need to take several measurements throughout the race. For the longer distances, the lap times and finish times show up almost instantly when there's a big gap between athletes, although I believe there's a laser at the finish line too.
- stbtrax 2y agowhat wearable transponder has that kind of accuracy? ultrawideband is cm level in ideal conditions
- dyauspitr 2y agoEven if that is technically feasible that wouldn’t account for the lean, neck length etc. the center of the chest isn’t an accurate measurement given the current rules.
- phs318u 2y agoBack in 1987 I started my first job at the Australian DoD. Our group's remit was explosives testing and instrumentation. One of my jobs was to program a hardware controller/sequencer[0] that would trigger numerous equipment: detonators, accelerometer recorders and high-speed analogue cameras. At our facility, we had two bunkers (for in-situ explosives testing), that had a very small window (maybe 15x15cm that was about a foot deep), behind which sat a very big, very expensive, and very fast high-speed camera. That thing could do 10^6 FPS for very short bursts. It had a relatively long lead time to spin up to speed (hence the need for sequencers to precisely kick of the camera and then detonate the subject device at the right moment). I vaguely remember being told that it cost several million dollars (pretty expensive back in 1987). The team that were in charge of that thing also had a couple of Silicon Graphics IRIS workstations, while I was stuck button punching codes on a vertical, rack-mounted keyboard for the sequencer. That camera and the graphics workstations felt like we were living in the future. I've tried to find out more about the camera but honestly all I can recall is how fast it was, how expensive it was, and that the whole rig took about a square meter or two of floor space. But to eventually be able to see an explosion evolving frame by frame was pretty cool. I fully expect given the pace of change, that by the time 40 years has passed, what was once DoD specced "secret" tech, will be consumer level tech - shrunk from m^3 to several mm^3, and cost down by a factor of 10^5. Amazing. [0] Zilog Z8 BASIC model controller.
- bufferoverflow 2y agoWhat kind of consumer camera is capable of 1 million FPS and costs $10?
- phs318u 2y agoIt will have been 40 years in 2027. Give it another 3 years and I think we'll be close. It will be a $10 part (ok, maybe a $50 part) in a $3000 phone.
- bufferoverflow 2y agoIt won't be, not in 2027. Smartphone cameras are not improving exponentially anymore.
- theronald 2y agoIt would have to be column per second cause cam sensor is most likely rolling shutter so the top of the frame would be detected later than the bottom but ideally if you have a global shutter cam sensor you could do entire frames per second but I don’t think a global shutter 40k fps camera exists.
- bankcust08385 2y agoI'm still left wondering how the position of a runner is calculated: Is it any leading part, centroid, leading non-appendage, nose, or something else?
- gliderShip 2y agoTorso
- bankcust08385 2y agoThat's still not specific enough. Any leading part of the torso, centroid, or average of the leading edge of it?
- nsriv 2y agoThe rule is that the winner is the first person whose torso, defined as trunk of the body, reaches the closest edge of the finish line. In practical terms that means shoulder line when leaning forward, as is evident by image in the article.
- hoseja 2y agoThere are WAY better slow motion cameras than that.
- jaffa2 2y agoWho manufactured this camera ? this artical is puff brand marketing nonsense ? Anyone got any details on camera manufacturer or similar, actual information?
- martin_a 2y agoIt's made by Omega. They are the official timekeepers and have to take care of this. Also from the article: > an image taken by an Omega camera
- jaffa2 2y agoOmega dont make the cameras, yes they have branded it. Who makes the sensor? And the package? Theres a few industrial camera manufacturers it could be
- andrelaszlo 2y agoMaybe my intuition is unusual or wrong, but it seems like a race that's this tight could have been won by anyone. Is being a thousand of a second ahead at a certain point really showing that you are a better or faster runner? At some point this seems about as fair as a coin toss to me. :) Edit: I missed that this point had already been made https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41230449 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41230449
- paulcole 2y ago> Is being a thousand of a second ahead at a certain point really showing that you are a better or faster runner? It shows that you won.
- andrelaszlo 2y agoSure, I get it! Some potential purposes of a race: - To compete in order to see who ran the fastest - To determine who the best runner is - To provide entertainment - To build a career for the runners - To show the result of the runners' talents, hard work, and dedication - Build a sense of national pride, ... My guess is that many people would think of the first point as the "real" purpose of a race. In that case, measuring as accurately as possible makes sense, since it will give the best answer. If you agree to some extent that races are also about determining who the better runner is - then you must also consider that there is a point after which the runner doesn't control the outcome. Wind seems to be a big factor; the maximum allowed wind is 2 m/s, and the average tailwind for all world records since 1977 is 1.18 m/s (none were made with a headwind). The wind can't be exactly the same in different lanes, so for two very similar runners - there is also a bit of luck involved in the outcome.
- paulcole 2y ago> If you agree to some extent that races are also about determining who the better runner is I don't agree with this to a meaningful extent. "Better" is too vague to be meaningful. A purpose of the race is to determine who won the race. Sometimes that is to some extent the better runner, but not always. I don't care who the better runner is. I want to know who won the race.
- beloch 2y agoStray gusts of wind, slight irregularities in the track's surface, other tiny inequalities between lanes or starting positions are probably going to nudge runner performance enough to overwhelm the precision of even a fairly unremarkable finish camera. If fairness were the primary consideration, then they would use any old junk camera and be generous in calling ties. This kind of theatrical accuracy is there purely so that Omega can advertise.
- sfn42 2y agoI agree with your factual claims, many things can influence the result. But I don't quite see how using less accurate measuring tools makes sense. At the end of the day getting across the finish line first is the only thing that really matters. Seems to me that more accuracy can only be a good thing
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- unethical_ban 2y agoDo they go back to ensure everyones foot is on the block to a precise mm, or to ensure that the runner didn't flinch or move their foot from the block 1/1000 of a second early before the sound hit their ears, taking into account the distance from each runner's ear to the closest speaker playing the starting sound? The extreme level of precision, I suspect, is not the same at the finish and the start.
- biggestdummy 2y agoThey do, in fact, have humans who check to make sure that everyone starts behind the starting line. And both humans and computers which check to make sure that nobody starts early. Two notes on "starts early." One - start is any visible bodily movement, not the crossing of the start-line. So any flinch, whether in the direction of the start-line or not, is a false start. Two - if you start inside of 0.1 seconds of the start-gun, it is declared a false start, since the assumption is that no human can react faster than that. The precision at the start is quite high!
- Brett_Riverboat 2y agoAt first I read the title as "40 FPS" and thought "well thats stupid" Then I realized it's me thats stupid.
- ynniv 2y agoThe image presented is so distorted it makes everyday interpretation impossible. They'd be better off with a mesh of laser rangefinders and a camera shooting at a meager 1,000 fps. They say the winner was ahead by 5 thousandths anyway.